Page 1 of Sheep Calm and Merry On
It's been three years since former hockey player Devon Hughes dried out, hung up his skates, and started raising wool sheep. Now he's driving home from Christmas shopping in a snowstorm and happens across a stranded motorist. What kind of monster would he be if he didn't stop?
When the weather turns, Noah Bell is returning to his roots after a short stint in pro hockey, a slightly longer stint in higher education, and a failed relationship. He's convinced he's going to freeze to death in a rest stop on I-75 until a stranger shows up to rescue him. At least if he goes home with this guy, he'll be warm before he can get ax-murdered. Except it turns out he and Devon have more in common than just not being serial killers. If they can get past the panic and sheep calm, maybe this Christmas they'll get their merry on.
IT WASN’T unusual to have a white Christmas in Vanderbilt, Michigan.
But it was a little unusual to have a blizzard-like white-out December 23.
Fortunately Devon’s trusty farm truck had four-wheel drive and a good set of chains or he would’ve been stuck in the grocery store parking lot until the plows came through, and who knew how long that would take. He might have had to spend the night at his sister’s place, and it was going to be crowded enough. He was pretty sure she’d invited the whole town for the holidays.
Either way, he was sticking to the bigger roads as much as possible and taking it slow. No point tempting fate, especially since cell reception up here was spotty enough when the weather was good.
And the weather was decidedly not good. Devon kept the truck in low gear and his eyes on the road, the windshield defroster cranked. He should’ve had the heated steering fixed. He updated his mental priority list to include “fix the heated steering.” Check the shelters, break the ice on the unheated water troughs, feed the critters, call the mechanic.
Then he could build a nice fire in the farmhouse woodstove and spend the rest of the night drinking cocoa and wrapping presents.
If his teenage self could see him now, he’d probably think he’d overdosed.
Snow battered the windshield and wind rocked the truck as he crawled along toward his exit. The snow was thick enough that he could only see a narrow sliver of road through the tracks left by other vehicles. The sides of the road were already more than a foot deep. Nasty stuff, and it was only getting worse as the temperature dropped.
Not a good day to be out for a drive, for sure. Anyone who got in an accident out here was in for a nasty night.
Devon had to keep a close eye on the side of the road in order to keep track of it under all the snow or he never would’ve seen it—a tiny green sedan that had slid off the road and ended up half in a snow drift. A good two inches covered the roof, so it must have been there for a while.
Cursing, Devon eased on the brakes as he passed and dared a glance over. He couldn’t see anyone in the car.
He did see a track in the snow, though, heading north along the roadside. Devon thought whoever’d been driving the car had to be insane, until he spotted the mile marker just sticking up above the snow.
There was a rest area with bathrooms and telephones a quarter mile up the road. Maybe the driver didn’t have a death wish after all.
Even with four-wheel drive and chains on his tires, Devon didn’t make the turn into the rest area. The lot hadn’t seen a plow in hours; if he went up that road, he’d never get out again. So, cursing himself and whatever moron thought it was a good idea to drive a subcompact in northern Michigan in the middle of a blizzard, he stopped the truck, grabbed a set of flashers from the emergency kit and set them on the tailgate, and hoofed it through the snow.
The wind bit his cheeks and eyebrows, and he was quickly in snow up to his knees. A fire and hot cocoa, he reminded himself. And a good night’s sleep for his Good Samaritan act.
The sun was going down, and the temperature was plummeting with it. Devon wrapped his scarf tighter around his face, hunched his shoulders, and pushed into the wind. The sooner he got to the rest stop, the sooner he could go back to his truck and get warm.
Finally he pushed open the doors and stepped inside.
The power was out—no surprise—so it was emergency lighting only, and no heat, though it was still warmer than outside, and at least the wind and snow couldn’t get in. Devon squinted into the dim light. “Hello? Anybody here?”
No answer.
“Anybody else here crazy enough to get out of their car in this shit, or is it just me?”
But the snow tracks definitely led here, and now that his eyes had adjusted, he could make out a watery trail in the direction of the bathrooms. Well, that made sense, right? Might as well find a smaller area, try to keep that warm.
He followed the puddles to the men’s room, but found it empty. Then he spotted one more puddle in front of the women’s bathroom.
Now what? He didn’t want to be a creep, but also, leaving without checking on whoever was here was not an option.
He knocked. “Hello?” he called. “Ma’am?”
No answer.
Well, if whoever was in here was dead, they weren’t going to yell at him for coming in. He pushed the door open.
At first he thought this room was empty too. Maybe he’d actually driven the truck straight into a hydro pole and hit his head and this whole thing was just him hallucinating during his last moments.
But then he heard a rustle that sounded almost like those stupid helium balloons, the ones people filled up for Valentine’s and birthdays and wedding photoshoots, and he tried again. “Is anyone—”
